Have a good one! Or complain about how arbitrary it is, either way. The rest of the week will be fairly light in the ol’ content department around here, but be sure to check back in to see ALL THE NAMES WE DIDN’T NAME THE TOAST back when Nicole and I were first dreaming of a misandrist blog (spoiler alert: they are all garbage).
Anyhow, a little plug for those of you looking for something to do tonight: When Harry Met Sally is the greatest movie that is nominally about New Year’s Eve. “No movie was ever bad that had a scene on a train or prominently featured Auld Lang Syne,” as my dad always says.
Toasties, this is not a good start to 2015! Our third roommate has just backed out. Send alcohol! Or a third roommate–that is, if you know of anyone looking for a room in Toronto.
If I didn’t just start a new job (and could figure out immigration issues really fast), I would volunteer.
But good luck! I hope you find a relatively clean, low key/drama-free, sociable but not too sociable, lovely roommate.
I’ll keep an ear out!
I’m looking for a room in Toronto!!! Seriously. Get at me!
Happy New Year Toasties! What is everyone’s plans?
My husband and I are going to a young person bar with my younger brother and all his surfer bro friends. It promises to be both free and ridiculous – wish me luck! I can’t remember the last time I “went out” on New Year…
My best friend is having a small get-together at her house. I am excited because she has already purchased sparkling cider for me so we can toast!
possibly going to a party where bearded boys have been promised (but then, i live in the PNW). almost certainly amping up my witchiness. definitely hanging out and toasting with some toastie friends. hopefully it will be good! this is my first new year’s since 2009 leading into 2010 that i don’t have someone to kiss at midnight? which is kinda weird and sad.
BUT WHATEVER I’LL KISS MYSELF
Adding “amping up my witchiness” to 2015 resolutions.
Yes tell us more about how you’ll do this…
haha, honestly, i am not entirely certain! it is part attitude, part fantastic jewelry. also i will be doing a bunch of tarot today. anyway it is kind of nebulous and probably only you can determine in which ways you can amp up your own witchiness!
here is a pictorial aid, though:
(hopefully that works, i’ve never posted a picture here before)
AMAZING
aw, thank you! 😀
I’m going to see Cake with my boyfriend. This will hopefully be fun–I hadn’t thought about Cake for years until I googled around for concerts in December and January. We’re getting dinner beforehand which I suspect will be much more NYE-stressful than the concert itself.
Currently leaving nyc (I KNOW) for a small gathering with friends in a nearby city. My partner is working all night because service industry. I gave up on the idea of smooches at midnight for snuggling with my coven.
Bed, beer, long-time friend of the male gender, maybe there will be smooches, maybe not, but definitely bad television and complaining.
Some friends are coming over & we’re going to have champagne & play board games & make fun of the ball drop. Or if we get bored we’ll go out.
My fiance and I are hosting a dozen friends for what has essentially become a slumber party. There will be board games, and Dance Dance Revolution, and a puppy! I generally hate NYE as a holiday, but I’m pretty stoked about tonight.
Thai food and Into the Woods with friends.
Pizza and Gilmore Girls here. Yay!
I’m working until 10, so nothing big for me. I’m gonna go pick up some Chinese food and cookie dough before my shift and I’m already armed with a bottle of sparkling apple juice, so it’ll be food and sparkling beverage and maybe a movie when I get home.
I started doing Chinese food + movies a few years ago when I realised that I never really enjoy anything else I manage to pull together for NYE. It’s worked out pretty well so far.
My friends are all out of town, so I’m going to drink cava by myself and set off a bunch of fireworks. (Setting off fireworks is Dutch tradition- you can buy them only 3 days out of the year, and set them off only on NYE.) I am more excited for New Year’s than I’ve been in a long time.
I’m also doing board games! I invited a gosh darn lot of people, a decent number of which are actually coming, and spent the morning cleaning my apartment. And making paper snowflakes. I have my priorities straight.
Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, probably.
Last year my husband and I stayed in, cooked a nice meal, and sat on the couch watching Die Hard with the cats and a bottle of prosecco. This year my husband and I will do the same, but watch Point Break instead. Yaaaay! *Fires her gun up in the air and goes “ahhrgh”!*
Otherwise I am going to spend the day playing Endless Legend (think Civilization V, but high fantasy and with some neat variations on the formula) and surfing the internet. Fuck off, 2014!
Murder mystery fondue pyjama pant party! I’ve already laid in supplies for a bacon and egg hangover breakfast tomorrow, after which I will languish on the couch watching the rest of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries series 1.
Happy New Year, fellow Toasties!
On call, hopefully delivering a New Year’s baby. That would be neat.
I’m hoping my neighbors are having a party I can crash. If I knock on their door to wish them a happy [whatever], they usually invite me in and offer me beer. It’s pretty great.
TOASTIES!! Did you all hear Roxane on NPR this morning? I LUFF HER.
MrChouffe and I are going to hang out at a credibly swank party this evening at a downtown restaurant and watch the giant Cherry Ball drop outside, which should be a great deal of fun. Right now I have to get through the seemingly unending pile of year-end donations (but we made budget, hooray!) and make bank deposits and and and. FIZZY WINE FOR EVERYONE.
My father got everyone else (read: me, my mother, my sister) sick, so it seems like we will be staying in wearing PJs and watching Gilmore Girls while he waits on us and does all the dog walking.
So basically a perfect New Years Eve.
Resolutions for the new year anyone? Mine is that I’m finally going to learn how to code so I can get my freaking PhD already.
I was thinking I would try to learn Cantonese.
I’m trying to learn Mandarin! Sort of. Slowly. Using apps and maybe Mango. Just started really working on it last week, but if it can be a resolution I will do it!
I am going to attempt to do the 52-week-money-challenge thing (you deposit $1 the first week, $2 the next, etc etc) and try to eat less fast food that isn’t Taco Bell. Because you will pull my shitty not!burritos from my cold dead hands.
That challenge sounds really cool! I have heard, though, that it’s easier to do it in reverse – $52 the first week, $51 the second, etc. – just because things get tight around December, with holiday shopping and whatnot. I’m not speaking from experience though.
Oh, I like that! Considering I already deposited $50 this week, that sounds like I’ll be way better off. Thank you!
I’m continuing with my December/November/I forget when resolution to run more and with more direction. Want to be able to run my entire 5K with no walking.
You can do it, I promise.
here’s hoping! I’ll let you know in the 2015 new year’s open thread 😉
There is a great app called Ease Into 5k that you should try. I am fat and lazy, and it got me to where i could run a slow 5k, no problem.
I like that app! There is also the Zombies, Run! 5k app that is fun and has zombies (obv).
Better food choices (portion and content), more activity overall. We’re spending a fortune on a wedding photographer, so I want to look as much like my mental self-image as possible for the pictures, and that’s about six sizes smaller than current.
Every day, I’m going to try to remember the ridiculously easy, yet forgettable things that make life better in the long run. Like flossing. And kegels. I downloaded an app and everything! I actually started Monday so that I wasn’t trying to make new habits on a holiday.
So, in summary: I am setting the bar VERY low. I give it two weeks.
FLOSSSSS!!! >:| (I’m a flossing evangelist)
Oh, wow, I am never going to get into flossing.
flooooossssssssssssss >:{
My wife got me these like little sticks that have a piece of floss at one end, that you are supposed to floss with? But I just keep them in a little stack on the bathroom sink and stare at them when I brush my teeth.
Echoing Angelan_’s echo of flooooooooooooooss. Once you get into it, it’s so great and your teeth will be so happy. Buck up and actually use floss, with a fresh and clean section for each swipe between your teeth. Those pick-floss things are really only for emergencies when you’re in public and can’t haul out a strand of floss.
I can’t be bothered to floss either but I recently started using these little plastic toothpick-things and within just a few days I noticed my bad morning breath had virtually disappeared.
I never flossed before those, and now I do regularly. Maybe not as good as regular floss, but so. much. easier. You can use them while doing other things! With one hand!
I got one of those stuck between two of my teeth the other night. Apparently my expensive 1980s orthodontia practically fused my back teeth together in the process of introducing a small gap between my two front teeth. Wonderful.
ETA: Sorry, this was supposed to be a response to braak about the floss-sticks. Nurt.
I almost never flossed until I accidentally came across this image: http://www.glenmoreparkdental.com/blog/wp-content…
I printed it out and stuck it in the corner of my bathroom mirror, and now I floss every few days or so. Not as good as daily flossing, but so much better than yearly flossing.
I thought this was going to be a picture of really bad dental health or something that talks about how dental health is a signal of full body health.
This is so much better.
I lived with a good friend of mine for the summer of 2012, and before we moved into the apartment she had a dream that she and I worked out every day in the living room. And that our workout always concluded with kegels – kegels in all different positions, for 30 minutes or so.
We didn’t quite make her dream come true, but we did institute “kegel challenges” – you do a minute, or two, or five of kegels, then text your friends and tell them they have to do that many minutes. No issuing challenges without doing the kegels first yourself!
The site Health Month might help with stuff like this? You set goals (do thing on x days a week or x times a week) and then you get points (that are meaningless) when you do stuff towards your goals. You lose life points if you miss goals but if you have a team you can ask for fruit and fruit restores life points. It sounds more complicated than it is. I’m on a Metafilter team which is mostly women and which is very supportive (in no small part because Elsa is Emily is on the team too). If folks are interested we could make a Toast team!
I want in. I think. I think I need encouragement.
It works best with an active team (IMO) but I’ll start a Toast team and maybe we can get others to join, or get you snuck into the Metafilter team maybe.
I should also have said it’s free for under 3 goals (rules) and $5/month above that, or you can ask for sponsorship — folks who’ve paid get a sponsorship chip that they can give to someone else. I have *tons* of them.
ETA: Team created! Join here: http://www.healthmonth.com/teams/1179
I didn’t know one could be a member of two HM teams simultaneously! Mind blown, request sent.
Yay!
Thank you for setting up a team. I’m still thinking about it.
I’ve joined your team! I hope that’s ok.
I used Health Month for a month once ages ago, then I quit for some reason that I’ve forgotten. Your posts have inspired me to give it another go.
Of course! It’s open to anyone! 🙂
Health Month, which laurenipsum mentions above — or, more precisely, the support of the MeFi HM team — has been instrumental in helping me make life changes, some small*, some big**. The interface sounds a little complicated, but you pick it up fast, and those small, incremental daily goals add up fast.
* like flossing! I now floss ~359 times a year, almost entirely because it’s an easy way not to lose a life point.
**Like writing. I wanted to be a published writer, oooooh, since I was five years old. But I never sent out anything to publishers. So I set myself that simple goal: write pitches, send ’em to editors, write the pieces they accept and don’t fret about anything they don’t. Take the steps I can control toward my goal, and don’t worry about what I can’t control. And it worked. It worked better and faster than I could reasonably have imagined.
Thank you very much for responding. You are one of my favorite people on the internet.
I did check out the site. I am confident I can adapt to any software/web interface. I am very happy that the point system helped you. I am in awe of your writing and goals. However, I am not at all motivated by points. Have never been competitive and find points pointless for *me*. I heartily endorse them for anyone who enjoys them.
I am hoping for regular contact with Toastfriends. That’s what would motivate me. I am alone far too much here in Small Town, Texas. I am not allowing myself to reject this opportunity yet, though. I will spend at least another day considering it.
Wishing you blessings in the new year.
Yeah, the points are pointless. You can totally ignore them if you like, though, and just use it as a social check-in mechanism. That’s mostly what I do.
Anyway take your time! You’re welcome whenever. 🙂
Whatever works for you is what works! If you’re tempted to join the Toast team laurenipsum set up, I’ll see you there, and if not, I’ll see you here. I benefit hugely from the team support I see at HM — and here!
When I started, I didn’t think HM would work for me, to be honest. I tried it because I needed something, the 3-goal level was free, and the built-in team support from an existing community seemed like a good idea. I continue to be amazed that I can be motivated even the tiniest bit* by some arbitrary point system, because it is so counter to everything I thought I knew about myself. Actually, this daily check-in system has taught me that a lot of what I thought about my habits and motivations was wrong.
But that’s me! The right fit for me isn’t necessarily the right fit for anyone else. Whatever works for you is the right thing. Good luck finding that thing!
*And for me, the points matter exactly enough to make me pick up the floss and not a jot more. They’re a reminder, not a goal in themselves.
I’m not sure if this will be any help to you, but when I started flossing I NEVER did it if I tried to floss at night. I had to do it in the morning or else, when nighttime routine came around, I’d say say screw it. But somehow flossing in the morning makes me feel so clean and great. It feels SO much better than just brushing your teeth!
I morning floss too! I asked my dental hygienist if morning was okay instead of night, and she said it was totally fine.
It’s like the doctor’s answer to which exercise equipment should I buy: whichever one you will actually use. Yeah, floss whenever, however, with whatever, as long as you actually floss.
That’s exactly the advice my dental hygienist gave when I asked if it was better to buy fancy slippery floss, those picks, or old-fashioned unwaxed floss: that yeeeeeah, the unwaxed stuff does a better job, but that I should buy whichever floss or implement I’ll use regularly.
For me, that meant starting with the super-slippery floss and occasional flossing pick use until the habit was entrenched, then graduating to old-fashioned. Any time the habit slips, I switch to the easy, slippery floss for a few weeks because I know I’m laaaaaaazy and that’s an easy way to reinforce the habit.
One year my New Years resolution was to remember to wear jewelry more often. I actually stuck with it, and it’s probably still my favorite new years resolution I’ve made. I may dust it off again for 2015, actually.
Trying to get into running again! We need a support group.
Anyone else trying Dryunary? We’re doing a lame and modified version because of existing plans, but we’re trying!
I think I’m going to do Drynuary again this year (I did it last year) with a possible game-time decision as to whether it starts tomorrow or on the 2nd. Last year I made an exception for a whiskey tasting that I had booked in advance. And I think I may have drank on the 31st as well. So… mostly-Drynuary.
Also I need to get into running again. Couch to 5k starts for the umpteenth time tomorrow! (Or maybe the 2nd!)
I’ll be Drynuary-ing too. With exceptions also for previously-made plans also! I figure that is still better than nothing and it’s only 2 exceptions.
I’m doing a marathon this year! I think a support group would be lovely. Maybe a Friday Open Thread check-in? I love talking about running.
I love it! Let’s do that.
I’m doing sort of the opposite, in that I intend to start doing some serious drinking (i.e. at least a booze-unit a week).
Got all the supplies needed for Long Island Iced Teas, which seems like the least loathsome option (until summer, or “cider season”).
Any encouraging words?
Your plan sounds intelligent and vivacious! Go for it!
*snerk*
That was pitch perfect, thank you.
I’m doing drynuary, plus lo-carb-nuary, because I have PCOS ( http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pco… ) and a low-GI diet helps control it. I’m hoping to jumpstart and re-orient my diet and palate. This has worked in the past. However, I live across the street from a strip mall that includes both a phenomenal bakery and a delightful cocktail bar, so I’m sure it will be extra-difficult.
How about building in plans to treat yourself at long intervals. Put it in your calendar, a date with yourself, to visit the bakery once a week to have one very special, small treat. The week will be easier with that to look forward to. Same with the cocktail bar. That’s what would work for me. I trust you to know what works for you. Happy new year.
Thanks! That is what I’d like to do *after* the month of restriction, but I find that I need a set period of time of very clean eating before I can be less-clean in moderation.
Well *I* heard both the bakery and the cocktail bar are shutting down for the month. Something about everyone going on vacation. How convenient for you! 🙂
I want to learn how to do an actual dance, like, a routine or something, something that involves my butt playing more than a supporting role.
May I recommend the dance from the “Busy Earnin” video by Jungle?
Link
I’m trying the Don’t Break the Chain thing with exercising 30 minutes a day. I’ve had pretty good success at flossing with that strategy, so fingers crossed it helps me achieve more daily activity!
Also, maybe more self-care things each day but I don’t want to push myself in too many directions with my resolutions.
I like to make really specific, achievable goals.
1. Keep my downloads folder cleaned out.
2. Make something from one of my cookbooks 1x/week. Doesn’t have to be something complicated -the goal is merely to use the cookbooks.
3. A bigger goal – do another triathlon.
Last year one of my goals was to stop slamming the dishwasher closed with my foot!
Have you tried Eat Your Books? It’s basically a search engine for your cookbooks (they’ve indexed a ton of them, and you tell it which ones you have, and it will only search the ones you own). It’s $25/ year, but it really increased the amount we use our cookbooks since it lets us do the “I want to make something with lamb” thing we’d normally use the general internet for.
Oh awesome, I hadn’t heard of this! Thank you ! Something for me to explore while I’m recovering on the couch tomorrow 🙂
The only concrete resolution I’ve made is to go through my (overflowing) book collection this winter and actually GET RID OF the books I don’t want anymore. scaryyyyyyy. but necessary.
Do you know where you want to get rid of them to? Bet it would be way less scary if you knew they were going to be loved in a disadvantaged school or resold at a used book store!
nope, not yet! gotta do some research on my options (and see what I actually have). I’d definitely like to donate at least some, though!
I am going to find a primary care doctor this year and ask her to help me take care of some stuff that I have been trying to ignore. Also, portion control.
Since selecting my new insurance earlier this month, I’ve been randomly singing “TEN DOLLAR MENTAL HEALTH CO-PAAAAAAAY” to myself at odd moments. I am gonna get so much mental health. I’ll be up to my elbows in mental health.
Pick up a little extra mental health for me, please?
I figure they’ll have a big basket of free mental health to take home with me, like the condom basket at the university health clinic, right? I am going to STUFF MY POCKETS with mental health to share.
(Seriously, this coverage doesn’t kick in until February, and I am already researching covered therapists w/in walking distance, researching antidepressants just in case we decide to go that way, and wondering what in the world I will say to her. For some reason, I assume she will be a her, and I am comfortable with that assumption.)
That’s similar to what I say when people ask when I’m going to quit my job at the university and be on the farm full-time.
I’m contemplating doing a 365-day photo challenge documenting my experiments with my new fashion aesthetic. I guess I have about 24 hours to make that call…
I would support such an endeavor.
Stop pretending I don’t know things when I do know things. It’s a habit I’ve basically had since teenagerhood, when I realized that no one likes a know-it-all, but it’s not doing me or anyone else any favors. We’ll see if I can break myself of it.
Recovering know-it-all here. It was a survival strategy for a harsh childhood. As you know, a liability in adulthood. Helpful for me: aiming to say at least once a day, “I wish I knew more about that; please tell me more.”
I am sure you will do well with this excellent resolution. Happy New Year.
three resolutions:
1. make a fool of myself with paint on canvas
2. play more video games that make me happy (any recces for “things like Monument Valley” welcome)
3. listen to more music
Mine are not terribly original – exercise more, keep saving money, donate money to charity every month.
I tend to not make specific resolutions, but my overall plan is not to do less of good things than I did the previous year wherever possible – exercise, veggie consumption, charitable donations, whatever. I’ve found over the years that that approach slowly turns things you struggle with into a basic minimum for living, and I try not to beat myself up over periodic backslides.
I’m going to complete tasks once I start them. Secondary resolution: write more things down so I remember I’m in the middle of doing them.
Not a resolution as much as a self-imposed deadline, but I am determined to defend my dissertation proposal in March. I’m also determined not to use my credit card as much as I have been, and hopefully make some progress on my debt.
Good luck on your proposal defence. I am too scared to even start my proposal, which was supposed to be done last semester. 🙁
Proposal support group??
Yes learning to code! I have been meaning to sign myself up for codeecademy for almost an entire year… what language are you planning to learn/what resources are you using??
also getting an inhaler so I can finally start running again – I don’t know how I made it to almost 30 without knowing I had exercise induced asthma, but after finding out in a big way a couple months ago this needs to happen.
Good luck to everyone with your resolutions!!!
Hey Toastfriends, do you have any experience with paid dating sites like Match or eHarmony or anything? I’m kind of mentally over OKC at this point and am wondering if a site where people pay to be listed may end up in something a bit more serious.
I wish I had a picture, but I am absolutely rocking Space Witch Nails today and I have Toastie Twitter to thank for that, because space witch is going to be my aesthetic for 2015. (Am I following you? Do you want me to follow you? Let me know! @elyseexplosion)
I HOPE YOUR PLANS FOR 2015 ALSO INVOLVE POSTING SELFIES ON TWITTER
My plans will never not involve posting selfies on Twitter!!
toastie twitter sounds like my kinda thing THOUGH honestly right now i am tweeting so much about dragon age, haha. (@jekyllian, let’s talk about dragon age, toasties.)
It’s okay, half the time I talk about Pokémon too much. Following you!
I don’t really do twitter but I want to talk about Dragon Age! I have no idea what I’m doing.
oooh, okay! where are you in the game? what kind of inquisitor are you?
I am only at the beginning! I got stuck in a side quest that I couldn’t get out of (couldn’t leave until finished, not high enough level to kill the guys I needed to kill to finish) so I started over with a new character. I am still in the Hinterlands. I don’t think I’m an inquisitor yet (but don’t worry about spoilers, I follow some folks on tumblr who are very into DA fandom).
okay! my advice would be to do some of the really minor quests to build up some xp. and two things to remember: you can turn the difficulty down at any point (except maybe in the middle of combat?) and you can load a previous save, if you ever again find yourself in a situation like you described. luckily inquisition is pretty good about giving you frequent saves, but also save your game all the time.
what are you playing it on?
*facepalm* I totally forgot I could load a previous save. Duh.
I’m doing much better this time though now that I have a better sense of the controls. I’m on PS3 and I haven’t played a console game in aaaaaaages.
oh, jeez, yeah, it’s kind of amazing how much of a difference just knowing the controls can be. (i play on pc, and i switched all the key bindings in inquisition to match up with what they were in origins, because i am that person, apparently.)
I don’t do twitter either, but I literally always want to talk about dragon age.
YAAAAAAY. where are you in the game??
I finished it but I think I missed so much, so I will have to do a slower more thorough playthrough soon. I started a dirtbag dalish character who is waiting for me when I get back from my parents’.
bears! I can’t stop getting killed by the bears in the hinterlands. halp!
This is my first ever experience with a game like this and I’m loving it but am completely clueless.
omg those bears
okay, so if this is your first time playing a game like this, i’d probably recommend turning the difficulty down if you haven’t already – there is 100% no shame in it.
also one thing i did sometimes is disengage from a fight (on PC i think this was mapped to ‘L’ – not sure about consoles) and literally just run away. your companions may or may not follow you, but that’s okay.
oh, the surge of excitement i just felt when you said i can turn the difficulty down! didn’t know that was a possibility. thank you!
i do a lot of running away, the last couple hours of play have consisted of me trying to sneak past or run away from the bears. which is surprisingly fun.
thanks!
happy to help!!
What happens if they die though? Will the bad guys go away eventually so can I go back and revive my friends?
i think (it has been a while since i’ve done this) that after a while they will just sort of show up with you? or probably once everyone is dead the enemies will lose interest & go away & you can revive them.
yes, i think that they just come back to you once the fighting is done.
I just found said bears today. I ran away and they killed everyone and chased me and I kept running. I took it to the farm to see if the bear would eat the druffalo but it didn’t so I ran some more. Eventually dead companions fell out of the sky near where I was standing! The dead companions followed me! And then eventually the bear got tired and my companions all brought themselves back to life apparently.
It was pretty entertaining just running from the bear for several minutes.
Following! I’m hit or miss on the twits but I like to see what other Toasties are doing.
Hey, you know one of my non-Toast friends! SMALLEST WORLD
The world is indeed the smallest. Particularly the internet world.
Soooo, I did Match for a hot minute, because I didn’t want to go to OKC for some reason? And I had done Tinder but (as my Boo likes to say – and we met on Tinder, don’t know what that means, but…) Tinder makes OKC look like a church social.
Anyway. Match. It depressed me. I’m in my upper 30’s, but am very “young” in appearance and lifestyle, and I felt like the majority of men on the site were old, no matter their actual age. Also, I started to set a meet n greet up with one of the few options that appealed to me, and it turned out that he ditched a lady friend of mine to make these plans with me. Lady Friend and I figured this out as we discussed our prospects. I know all is fair in love and war, but it just seemed shitty. On top of that, apparently he lied about his age, which is such a bummer. Just be YOU, potential partners of the future, right?!
So, long story short, go on Tinder! lololol, jk. I mean, it was fun, but the Boo and I definitely feel that our situation is the exception more than the rule. If you want to try Match just brace yourself for many overtures from men who fall way outside of what you clearly state you are looking for. Which drove me crazy because TRUST ME, I know what I want. You sending me smarmy messages or “winking” at me won’t change that.
That’s also what I was afraid of. I’m in my late 20s right now, and don’t know much about the age range of Match users around here. I haven’t tried Tinder yet – probably because the only person I know on Tinder is my one coworker whom I love but is kind of a playboy. So basically, I have no idea. Hell, maybe I’ll give both a shot at this point, maybe they’ll even out?
It really is encouraging to see the varieties of places people have met their partners, though, I feel like I’m just being whiny at this point.
Oh I like Tinder! I think because it’s so “in” right now and so inherently silly and bizarre you’re going to get a wider pool of people using it for a wider variety of reasons and in my opinion it makes it a lot easier to find someone you’ll actually get along with. There’s also a lot less pressure. And I don’t know, I think even if it’s unsettling not knowing anyone else who uses it might be a good thing! Branching out and all that.
Tinder is also ideal if you’re veering on the edge of emotionally unavailable and feel the need to turn any earnest attempt at happiness or love into a tongue-in-cheek bit, but ha ha ha how would I know anything about that right?!
Fair enough! At this point anything’s worth a shot, I’m pretty open! And not anywhere near emotionally compromised at times ha ha what no I have no idea what you’re talking about
Why are there so many dudes on there with kids who are looking for someone to form a real connection with or whatever? Maybe it’s just where I am, but I’m like, I can barely handle my own feelings right now, I definitely don’t want to deal with anyone else’s and then you want to bring a kid into it too? I just want to hook up with literally no obligations whatsoever. Come on.
A bunch of my friends (mid 20s) use Tinder to find people for actual dating. A couple of them have ended up dating people for a few months from it!
I got off OKCupid and went to Match, hoping to find men who would be willing to actually meet in person. I found it depressing, but then as an over-40s person I find all online dating depressing. The whole winking/liking thing on Match makes me feel like I am back in high school and I really hate it. I did go out with several guys but nothing worked out in the long run…I met two who I really liked but both liaisons crashed and burned after sex entered the picture. In contrast, I am still friends (though not romantically involved) with the three people I met on OKCupid. I think OKCupid profiles are more accurate and revealing.
Also Match has what I consider a rather unethical billing policy. I tried to cancel my account but apparently failed to check some box or something, and they billed me for another three months of membership without notifying me first.
I am thinking about trying Tinder, but am kind of afraid it is a young person thing. But I look young for my age and am not averse to younger men so maybe it would work out? Is Tinder scary?
Yess, toastie twitter! My twitter game is kind of weak but I hope that will ALL CHANGE. Just followed you, mine is @dontbestuckup
I know people are down on New Year’s as a time of resolutions, because it is arbitrary and actually who cares? But I think it is a pretty good time to take stock of everything and think about where you want to go in the next year. It’s arbitrary, sure, but we may as well devote SOME day to doing it.
I sat down and thought about all of my New Year’s resolutions. Surprise! They are all the same as last year! I am chronically incapable of getting anything done!
Stock: taken.
One of my resolutions is to be kinder in life, which to me means making more of an active effort to help people feel good about things when I’m able to, which is why now I am going through and liking everyone’s New Year’s plans. They sound like fun! Fun is good, I hope you have it!
Other resolutions include:
1. Practice Kung Fu more (Pai Mei says when you practice one day, you gain one day; when you skip one day, you lose ten)
2. Read more books (I swear these last few years I’ve actually felt my attention span atrophying)
3. Finish writing these two books that I have HAD FOREVER AND ARE ALMOST DONE WHAT AM I EVEN WAITING FOR, IDIOT
4. Stop permitting myself to dwell on the overwhelming jealously I experience when I observe the success of others.
I think I’m going to have to have Reading Sunday or something once a month just to get back into the swing of reading. Like, the rules would be to have a real breakfast and not turn on the tv until I’ve read for at least two hours. My backlog is just growing and growing (and like half of it is comics, so I have NO EXCUSE).
Also by this time next year I want to be able to do 50 pushups in a row.
Yeah, that is a good idea, my weekends right now are pretty bare, and we only get three channels on our TV anyway.
I am supposed to be at one-arm pushups at this point in my exercise routine, but I am losing basically three months of work due to surgery. I am trying to use my newly-resolved sense of optimism to look at this as an opportunity to RE-practice all my exercises.
New Year’s resolution, same as Old Year’s resolution.
Yes on New Year’s as a time for taking stock of things! I still really like the holiday and that mindset of just saying YES this year I’m going to try this out and it will be new and I will learn new things – and it’s going to be awesome!
Having said that, my resolutions will be the same as last year’s, too.
A friend that I don’t see often invited me to join them in their (and their roommates’) backyard tonight. They will build a fire, though I don’t think that will do anything to protect me from the 25 degree weather, weenie that I am. I am inside right now and feeling cold, so naturally my mind can’t stop trying to think of legit-sounding reasons to not go or stay for like 5 minutes.
Also new years is so dreadfully arbitrary, amirite? :X
Coldness is a totally legit reason in my opinion!
Toasties, this will be my last NYE in the US. I am moving back to Australia, and so are the Ex and the BergyBits. I am happy/nervous/excited/sad.
Tonight, I will either be giving fizzy Australian candy to stoned people, or eating cheese & crackers at home alone. I’m pretty happy either way tbh.
WHAT?! Sorry to have been so out of the loop, but hope it’s a positive move for you and the Bits. And, I guess, that guy that you used to know (only because he’s the Bit’s papa).
ugh ugh ugh I actually have been meaning to FB message you my darling
it is a positive move tho
Oh hey while I’m thinking of it can you DM me your mailing address on twitter or facebook again? I have a package I keep meaning to send off to you and I’m a lazy, careless jerk.
I have been Toasting somewhat sporadically for the last 6 months, and did not know that there were all these changes going on – but am glad that you seem happy with the changes!
And what is this Australian Fizzy candy? I’m intrigued…
Fruit Tingles!
Safe travels in the new year!
Big changes! I hope all goes well and that you’re rewarded with a mountain of boiled lollies upon arrival. Threw in that last bit just so you know I’m keeping up with the twitterations.
Love fizzy Aussie candy! My country will be poorer without you in it. But we are permanently enriched for your having graced us with your presence and with the BergyBits for a few years. Wishing you an uneventful move and future lovers/partners who go out of their way to show you kindness.
Bergy, that is a big change! I hope the move goes swimmingly for you, and that being halfway around the world from each other doesn’t mean we miss each other in the murky world of the intertweets.
Gooooooood morning Toasties! I am having a brutally dull morning, and I’m actually really sad that I’m going to be done work for the whole! week! in just a couple of hours. What am I going to DO all day?!?! Do I have to hang out with my stupid boyfriend and my annoying kid and my needy dog? UGH!
I’m thinking of getting up to grab a coffee, but I don’t really want to run into my (lovey! very likable! super friendly and approachable!) boss on the way and have to have a conversation. Instead I’m going to hibernate in my office with the space heater blasting and crappy pop country on songza.
Has Meg Ryan ever had a bad hair day? That photo is a thing of beauty.
My #dad liked the lighted reading glasses I gave him for Christmas.
And I bought a new winter coat the day after! My first since I was a teenager, which means it’s the first I’ve ever bought myself! I am 31 years old and live in Minnesota. It was time, is what I’m saying.
Now to find a hat so big I don’t have to look at anybody to pair this with.
#peakdad right there!
Everyone share your weird personal New Year’s superstitions!
Mine’s that once the clock hits midnight, I put my ipod on shuffle and try to do ~predictions~ from the first few songs that come up. This year’s was “I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” which I interpreted as a cheap shot on behalf of the universe concerning my diet and turning 27.
I used to do something like that- I’d turn on the radio after midnight and the first song I recognized would be my ‘theme’ for the year.
I stopped after getting ‘Baby Got Back’ twice in a row.
This is hilarious. I like this as a New Year’s idea!
Mine is that if your house is dirty at midnight it will be dirty all year, and if it’s clean, it will be clean all year. This is the first year I’ve had a clean place!
Mine is kind of like this, but more about how you spend New Year’s day – that you should have a really good day with things that you want to carry through to the rest of the year. Usually this means that I try not to drink a ton on NYE so I’m not hungover, and that I try to spend the day outside/with friends eating healthy things and having fun. BUT this year my husband and I accidentally stayed up until 5am and I woke up at noon with a hangover – I proceeded to make pancakes and get some work done though, so perhaps this will be a year of food and productivity? with hangovers?
I have the flu, hate my job, love my beau and otherwise care about nothing right now. Not in a depressed way, just in a “I have the flu and no energy and everything hurts so fuck you” way.
Happy Year thing!
This is quite the bitchiest thing I’ve ever posted on the Toast. Sorry, all. I blame it on the PMS/estrogen drop. Does this mean I’m more man-like? MAKE IT STOP!
I hope you feel better soon, Toastfriend. Don’t apologize for bitching. You’re entitled and this is the place to come for support.
Ugh, what a rough stretch you’re having! The flu can really knock everything else out of whack. Here’s hoping the new year starts with an easy recovery and plenty of rest.
Hellloooooo Toast! Happy New Years, etc…
Have been struggling a bit with hormone related anxiety since yesterday. This makes me a bit nervous as alcohol + anxiety is generally not a good mix, and I can never seem to remember this in the midst of celebrations. But hopefully just typing that out will help me to abstinate or moderate!
Going to dinner at the Boo’s somewhat swank place of employment (prix fixe for $20.15!) with two amazing lady friends. We’re using it as an excuse to dress up FABULOUSLY and I’m going to finally bust out the Betsy Johnson stilettos I purchased over the summer, and the hand me down Persian wool/mink collar jacket that one of my mom’s work colleagues gave to her (and then she to me). There will be other items of clothing too, but those are the highlights. Because boo is working I won’t be able to smooch him at midnight, but hopefully I can wink and maybe smack his hiney as he walks by.
Actually really extremely excited that I’m doing something nice but not CRAZY OMG LETS GET FUGGED UPPPPPPP. Anyone else happy for a lower-gear NYE?
I kind of miss the lower-gear NYE. My circle of friends has an annual party that usually gets pretty nutso by the end of the night. I always enjoy myself, and it is the anniversary of my first kiss with the current fella, so I will go. But I would also like to stay home and eat snacks in my pajamas, not gonna lie.
I plan to stay home and look for an apartment (sure Craigslist will be banging tonight) and go to bed early, and while I definitely support your goal to err on the side of boozy caution, I do think you should just wear the stilettos and jacket. But that’s just me.
It’s negative a million degrees and we have a baby. Anything good on TV tonight? I don’t want to have to watch Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin.
We just watch all the Marx brothers movies we can stand until everyone is passed out on the couch. And we started it when the kids were infants. So long as there is agreement on skipping the musical interludes there is peace.
– spend more time with my dog, especially walking & snuggling
– take more (*some*) care with my appearance. a.k.a., no more showing up to work looking like a vagabond
– try at least one new (and healthy) recipe a month
– throw a party
ETA: These are resolutions
I love the first one. I should do the same with my kitty baby. It’s so easy to have other stuff to do, you know?
let me post where I wanttttttt
You Kindle owning Toast folk:
$2.99 for The Luminaries today only!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BAXFAJC/ref=s…
Happy New Year!
Oh sweet! I was just looking for stuff to buy for the Kindle for the new year, and this fits the bill! Thanks!
Thank you for the tip!
Dunno, all When Harry Met Sally taught me was that the guy you’ve been just-friends-but-crushing-on for years will have an epiphany that he wants his life with you to start RIGHT AWAY.
Which he did not do. Despite all the flirty messages I sent on New Year’s Eve, hoping at some point he’d decide he wanted to ring in the new year with me. (This was over a decade ago, thank goodness. I know better now.)
We are spending New Year’s Eve with our former babysitter and her fiance — they are driving from NC to spend a few days with us and my 6yo is THRILLED. This babysitter lived eight houses down from us in Durham and was closer than family. She kept in touch with our kids after we moved and after she went to college, and has always been like a big sister to the 6yo. We’re all so excited to see her and catch up! MAYBE I CAN CONVINCE HER TO MOVE IN WITH US, WHO NEEDS COLLEGE/MARRIAGE RIGHT
I have to take a baby for his 4 month shots today, at a new physician. And tomorrow my husband and I are hosting a brunch, which is poor timing, but this was the best appointment we could get. Baby New Year will be fussy.
My resolutions:
Only read books by women, people of color, or queer people
Refuse invitations for big group dinners at restaurants or other activities I categorically hate
Devote time each day to dog training.
Ooh, those are good ones. I have been toying with the women/POC/queer resolution too, but I just got all those Calvin and Hobbses on Kindle for $2 yesterday … (looks like the price went up, sorry all) Maybe I’ll say rereads are exempt from the rule.
And dog training every day — that is something I should definitely be doing! Good idea.
I try to do around a 2:1 ratio – if I read something by a straight white guy, I have to read 2 things by people who aren’t straight white guys to make up for it.
I’ve been trending towards only books by women, people of color or queer people – it has made me really really happy. I’ve gotten a lot of good SF/F recs from Liz Bourke reviewing books on Tor.com
(http://www.tor.com/Liz%20Bourke#filter)
happy 2015!
Cheers, lovely Toasties. It is already 2015 where I am. Let me point you over to the Carmilla webseries on Youtube. Also. Oh mygod. Is a 32-33 waistline “fat”? I don’t really think anybody’s body is my business unless they asked my opinion, but this holiday I just get a lot of greetings from relatives with the same, “You’re fat!” or “You’ve gained weight!”
Noooo no no no. (Caveat: That’s about where mine is right now and I FEEL big, but that’s due to gaining 20 lbs in 2014 and 50 lbs over the last three years. Objectively, no, that is NOT big.)
Mine is in the 32-ish range no matter how much I weigh. Also, I refuse to believe that one arbitrary cutoff measurement (I’ve seen it anywhere from 30″ to 34″ for ALL women, regardless of height or build) indicates Health Problems. Your relatives sound very rude.
First of all, I have a hard time defining “fat” because it’s just a description but also it’s an insult but also people are reclaiming it and whatever, but I tend to peg it at whether you can walk into somewhere like Banana Republic and find something in your size, and I think 32″ is just at the top end of that (personally, I have sized out of Banana Republic and am about to size out of the Gap, and I r sad).
I also feel like size and weight are arbitrary meaningless numbers and what actually matters is how you feel and also actual meaningful numbers like blood pressure.
Also those people are kind of dicks.
This is exactly what I was thinking. (fat girl here. I have not sized out of Old Navy nor my Carhartt farm pants, so I’m OK with that.)
I just bought my first officially plus-sized sweaters, and I’m having more feelings about them than I’m comfortable with (Size is just a number! If you wear things that fit and look good, you’ll feel better about yourself! But they’re PLUS! The horror!) (Actually they look really good, although they feel a little cheap because apparently fat people don’t deserve nice things)
No. And the correct response to those relatives is to spray them with a fire extinguisher or hit them with a pie made of shaving cream. People need to be awakened to how offensive they are.
Or hit them with the fire extinguisher. Either way.
Yes, much more my style.
No bad movies with trains, huh?
No picture showing up. Is it Atlas Shrugged?
Damn it! No, it was On the Line starring Lance Bass.
I’m hanging with my mom and that side of the family since she flew all the way down to South Carolina to see me. I predict everyone but me in bed by 10:30.
I am spending my New Year’s Eve at my local Zen Center. The highlight will probably be when I get to write the thing I most want to get rid of and throw it in the bonfire in the back yard.
Also… take to the sea with an international gang of Meiville nerds as the New England Whaling Museum in New Bedford hosts its 19th annual Moby-Dick readathon this coming weekend! Philip Hoare, whale maven and historian (and delightful speaker) gets to say “Call me Ishmael” as the first reader on Saturday noon. He’ll also be giving the keynote Friday night at 7 p.m.
A real honest-to-Queequeg reverend will read Father Mapple’s sermon at the Seamen’s Bethel, and “The Ribs and Terrors of the Whale” will be SUNG there as well.
I myself will be reading at 10 a.m. on Sunday. I’m not sure yet of the passage (I don’t want to know, but it’s not likely that I’ll get any of Ahab’s great partling words). The audio will be livestreamed. Twitter hashtag #mdm19 – I will probably be live-tweeting some.
That sounds awesome. I admire you.
Nothing like a bunch of bad/meh New Year’s Eves to help one arrive at what a good one might look like. 🙂
I want you to know that I looked for a good ten minutes for a clip of that scene in “Bart the fink” when Bart and Lisa Simpson walk into the Sea Captain’s shop and he says into the phone “Call me back, Ishmael” and hangs up.
Your effort alone made me smile. Thank you for that.
Friends, the end of 2014 has been so bad that in a few months it will be a hilarious story, and I need to vent about it a little.
In mid-November, I lost my job. It was a government contract and I knew it was ending, so it wasn’t a surprise, but it still sucked. The company had hoped to move me into another position because they wanted to keep me on, but that is looking increasingly unlikely. Still- fingers crossed.
In early December, I got in a car accident – got broadsided at a four-way stop. Fortunately no one was hurt and I wasn’t liable, but I’m a new driver with some pretty severe anxiety when it comes to driving, so it shook me up badly. Plus, I was driving my parents’ car and the insurance company ended up totaling it, so I put them through the stress of having to get another car.
Last week I got robbed walking home from the grocery store. A man was walking pretty close behind me for about a block and I had a bad feeling, but I didn’t want to be a racist paranoid white lady who crosses the street just because a black man happens to be walking near her. He grabbed me from behind – I think he had a knife but I’m not sure – and said “Give me your pocketbook, bitch!” I kind of panicked and yelled and swung my grocery bag at him, but I didn’t want to risk getting hurt so I let him grab my purse and run off. I hope my $8 in crumpled ones and thrift-store purse was worth it, buddy. I’ve been pretty messed up about it – I keep panicking whenever someone walks too close behind me, or when I have to be out alone after dark. And I’m angry with myself for not using my self-defense training, I’m angry that I let myself become a victim.
Then, to cap things off, this past weekend I was reading my Facebook feed and I saw that my friend had checked in at a nice wine bar in my city. He lives in a different part of the country and was evidently visiting my city with his girlfriend. Now, I’ve known him for several years and have carried a torch for him the whole time. If I wound up in his city I would tell him right away so we could hang out, but he didn’t even think to tell me he was nearby. That stung a lot. I did the whole “Oh HEY, I see you’re in my CITY……” thing and he wound up inviting me out, but it didn’t feel good. I felt like I’d coerced the invitation out of him, and either I was an unwelcome intruder on his romantic vacation or I was just an afterthought and he’d forgotten about me entirely. I wound up drinking way too much and doing the obnoxious drunk-girl thing of texting my friends like “but WHY am I not GOOD enough for him???” which I am just…way too old to do.
Icing on the cake: there are no tickets left for the party/concert I was going to attend tonight, so I will apparently be ringing in the New Year alone, on Skype with my best friend.
Ughhhh. Sorry for the long comment, I just needed to vent it all out.
Wow, that is a lot. I’m sorry you had to go through that, 2015 has to be an improvement on the end of 2014 for you.
What a pile of yuck for you! I’m sorry.
Man, what a succession of crappy things. Internet hugs and internet champagne-clinking for you!
Sorry the end of the year has sucked so bad 🙁 good wishes for you in the new year.
Drive-by internet hugs! I hope 2015 treats you better because, damn, that sounds like a hell of an awful December.
That really sucks, and I wish you a 2015 full of the sort of good things that will speed up this year’s conversion to funny story.
I don’t know if this will help, but from a random internet stranger’s perspective, you seem to be being a bit hard on yourself for a few things. First, if you weren’t liable in the accident, then you *did not* put your parents through the stress of having to get another car. The jerk who hit you put them through the stress of having to get another car. That still sucks, but it is not in any way your fault. Second, when you got robbed, it sounds like the decision to let the robber have your purse, which you made quickly under a lot of stress, kept you (physically) safe. I’m pretty sure that counts as successful self-defence. Third, you directed your obnoxious drunkenness to your friends instead of the dude you are crushing on, which definitely gets you maturity points. The thing with crush-dude sucked, but I think the way you handled it was not that bad.
I appreciate that :3 I can see that I’m probably being too hard on myself for things I couldn’t help, I just have trouble feeling it.
I’ve been taking Krav Maga for about six months now and it’s put this idea in my head that I’d know what to do if I were ever attacked. This is the sort of thing we practice for, but when it actually came time to put my skills to use I totally froze. A lot of people made the point that since my body wasn’t in danger, only my possessions, I did the right thing by complying – the most valuable thing he got from me was some Sephora makeup. Still, in theory I know how to concuss/break the nose of someone who attacks me from behind and I didn’t use those skills. It didn’t help that I told my instructor what happened and he made me feel bad for not fighting back :/
Anyway, point is, I really appreciate your words, perhaps even moreso because they’re coming from a more objective place than my family’s and friends’ <3
Well, your instructor can shut up, for a start. You stayed safe in an unsafe situation, which should be the goal of any self-defense practice. Pretty much everybody freezes up the first time they face a tense/dangerous situation.
Hey, seven year kickboxing veteran and black belt here – letting the guy have the purse is self-defence! It de-escalated the situation and made you safer, which is what self-defence is for. Six months is a really short time to be practising any physical activity. Bio-mechanically, your muscles and nerves will have only just started getting used to the new movements so it’s unlikely you’re capable of the fast response times that improvisation requires. Psychologically, the stress testing and multi-person attack stuff in Krav Maga is good, but it’s not the same as actually being attacked.
Your instructor is a butthead if he thinks you should have fought back and you can tell him that – ‘Random internet stranger thecheapshot thinks you’re a butthead who should congratulate your student for not getting hurt instead of making her feel bad about letting 8 fucking dollars go’.
WHOA, your instructor can shut up right now. No matter how good your Krav Maga skills are, if the guy had a knife and also knows how to fight (which he very likely does , if he’s out mugging people), you could have gotten really really hurt if you fought back and were at all unlucky.
A good friend of mine punched a man who was trying to rape her when she went hiking by herself on a mountain, and you know what, she startled him enough by punching him in the face and throat to be able to run off the trail downhill and get away, so it was definitely the right thing to do, but even so she broke her own wrist with the force of her punch and was in a cast for over a month. Using force is soooooo much more likely to end in you injured; if you can avoid it, that’s the right thing to do. ARRRRRG angry growl at your foolhardy damn instructor.
I practiced martial arts for over 15 years and hold a black belt. The primary thing we were taught was to stay safe, that means if you can run, run. If you have to hand over your wallet, do that. You did the right thing. And I have been fortunate enough to never have to use my training in a real self defense situation, but it certainly takes more than 6 months to get comfortable in self defense situations. Freezing up is a totally natural reaction.
ETA: And yeah the assailent being armed adds a whole other dimension to it. You most definitely did the best thing to keep yourself safe 🙂
Your instructor’s giving you a whole lot of bullshit right there. My mom taught a women’s self-defense class for years (and even wrote a book which features lots of pictures of her kicking my dad in the balls on our front lawn), and was always very clear that the point of self-defense techniques is to get you out of the situation as unharmed as possible. Fight back if you have to, but only for as long as it takes to get to the point where you can remove yourself from the situation. You got to that point without needing violence, and therefore your self-defense instincts helped you protect your most important possession: you. Your instructor needs to stop being a macho idiot.
Big wishes for a better 2015. You did nothing wrong, and just need to rest a while and be gentle with yourself. I was once running for a bus and trying to throw my messenger bag over my shoulder when a young guy screamed, “OH! MY PURSE!” at me, and made a big fuss as if I had done it in response to his proximity. Even though I was the one passing by him, it got inside my head, and months later, alone at night and carrying a backpack that prohibited my running, I let someone get much too close to me far too quickly because I hesitated for fear he’d make fun of me! The situation ended okay, but you know what? Fuck that first kid and the friend who later made it worse by validating my fear. If it makes me racist, I’m also a woman alone at night and my safety has to come before his feelings. Yours does, too.
Ouch, those are all super tough things to have happen individually – that’s a collective pile of Rotten, and I’m so sorry you’re going through it. May your 2015 turn out better!
Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to ppyajunebug)
My resolutions are:
-Take an Abnormal Psych course (never took it in undergrad and it’s a prereq for all the grad programs I want to apply to)
-Apply to grad school
-Move out of my current apartment
-Become a Bat Mitzvah (scheduled for August 1!) (I’m 24, but my synagogue does b’nei/b’not mitzvah for adult converts or people who came to Judaism later in life.)
Mazal tov in advance!
Congrats on the bat mitzvah AND the grad school apps in advance! I’ve done both of those (at different times) and they are both amazing life steps!!!
New Year Whine (not wine): I wish I were pregnant, I feel seasick without being at sea, I’m ridiculously tired, my tracts of land hurt, everything is gross to eat, my toddler is adorable and I’m too wiped out to give him the attention he should have, I hate my hair (my stylist decided I’d look good like Worf last month), and I should go outside with the toddler in the intermittent sunlight but I don’t wanna. I had several false alarms before so I don’t necessarily believe I’m pregnant, and EVERYTHING IS ANNOYING ME. I just realized it’s NYE and I have no fancy food planned at all. Yesterday I threw a half-assed dinner party and let it happen with laundry all over the (constantly on-view thanks to two cats and a toddler) bedroom floor and unswept crumbs in every corner because I was feeling too blech and Mini Siniichulok suddenly felt that vacuum cleaners are traumatizing. Why is everything so haaaaard (I know it could be infinitely harder,tho–I will gain some reasonable perspective once I am fully awake again and stop wanting to hurl).
Hey, Parent-of-Toddler solidarity for you. No NYE plans here either, because my husband and 18-mo old are just emerging from a nasty stomach bug and we’re all just grateful the vomiting has stopped and we might all sleep again (hopefully). I spent a LOT of yesterday mentally whining about how we can’t catch a break around here, even though in reality we catch lots of breaks that I take for granted every day.
I hope you feel better and are pregnant (assuming you want to be, it sounds like you do). Frankly, you sound like a badass for throwing that dinner party. Any dinner party guest who objects to crumbs and laundry in a house with a toddler is not a dinner guest worth feeding.
Thank you! And hooray for no vomiting! Hope you had a relaxing day with minimal mess and bother. My guests were actually very nice and studiously refused to see the mess–it was just that I’d been planning to show off and hadn’t counted on pregnancy/faux pregnancy symptoms or toddlers being toddlerlike.
2014 has been a bad year, ending in a really awful way, with getting fired two days ago. Hoping 2015 goes better. (Also hoping my ex-boss hurries the fuck up and gets me my final paycheck so I can just move on from this whole mess.)
🙁
I am so sorry to hear that! That’s so shitty, particularly around the holidays. Best wishes for a better 2015 🙁
Thank you. I honestly don’t think he could have done it in a worse way. He apparently made the decision while I was on vacation, then had one of my senior coworkers tell me the day I got back instead of doing it himself. And didn’t have my final paycheck ready, so I’ve been having to wait on that.
I am having all kinds of feels today, mostly bad. I saw the guy who sexually harassed me in the hallway at work and had the creepy feeling he was watching me from the stairwell as I walked by (the door clicked shut JUST as I walked by after he had already gone through). Yeah, I had reported him and he had been warned, and now walking through the hallways feels like chancing a rattlesnake pit.
Then I took apart a guy in a comment on a Facebook post of my friend when he said he had no sympathy for women who struggled to leave emotionally abusive relationships. As a survivor of such a relationship, I was infuriated and told him that attitudes like his reinforced the hurt women are already going through.
Sorry, I just needed to vent. This year…I am glad it’s over. I have a good family and friends, but sometimes, between working and going to school I feel isolated and burned out.
Ugh, that is rough. Sorry to hear you’re dealing with all that.
Good for you for tearing that guy apart. That takes courage. And fuck that guy, for real. How do people like that sleep at night?
I’m AT WORK for another 1:30 and then I get to go home and have some time off tomorrow. Tonight I’ll be lounging on the couch with the husband watching the Orange Bowl, and tomorrow I’ll be drowning myself in Dragon Age: Inquisition and, er, “Climbing the Wall” *ahem*.
2014 was okay for me in my personal life but it was absolute shit for the world in general, so I’m saying good riddance. Here’s hoping 2015 is better. Fingers crossed.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is my plan for all of tonight and tomorrow!
Edit: And my husband’s currently chasing after Blackwall. I’m on the Cullen route this playthrough, but next time I’m all about the beard.
CULLENNNNNNN. <3 <3 <3
next time i’m romancing josephine. or bull. haven’t decided yet.
I’m LOVING the Blackwall romance. Like, it’s eating my brain a little bit. I keep wanting to go back and play more specifically for those little bits of romance you get. I’M RIDICULOUS.
I’m already thinking Cullen next time through, though. He’s so tall and Cullen-ey.
Cullen smirks after you kiss. It’s the best.
I have to start 2015 by telling two (TWO!) friends “If you would like to be friends with me, this is not how to do it” and UGH I would really prefer not to. One friend I might just let slide and confront the issue later if it continues, because I don’t mind as much if this friendship drifts away, but I can’t do that with the other.
Those issues aside 2015 is looking up, really up, and I’m excited for continued good stuff on The Toast and keepin’ up with Toastie Twitter!
Sending you good vibes and luck for those conversations. Hard but important. And hey, you are starting 2015 off being BADASS and OWNING YOUR LIFE and your friendships and being a strong person!
I’m still reeling from Christmas with liberal but nonetheless racially biased (tactless?) family members in the middle west (where I am not from, so a lot of this was new to me). One of them explained to me how he could not sympathize with the Ferguson demonstrations, or even the Eric Garner case or that 12-year old killed in an open-carry state for waving a toy gun, because he grew up in a middle-western state that is lily white and “didn’t see a black person for the first time until he was 10 or 11”, so it’s “not really my fight” which I sort of see but then he seemed to think the police were justified in their actions in all these cases because “[middle-western city] has black 14-year-olds commit murder all the time]”. It is also very strange logic to say because you didn’t encounter a certain group of people when you were younger, you can’t sympathize when they suffer systemic injustices. ?
Then my other uncle, also supposedly very liberal, told my husband he had the accent “like Zorro,” wouldn’t stop saying over and over that the Chinese restaurant we picked up take-out from was going to be good because the cooks were “fresh off the boat,” within hearing of the cooks; and imitated the accent of an Ethiopian lady who wished him merry Christmas right back at her to her face, “Merrrrry Chrrrrrrrrrrreeeeestmas.” I feel a little bit bad for not calling him out on any of this, but it took me by surprise. He also already makes a point of letting me know what a weirdo *I* am for not being a middle-westerner like him, so perhaps it would not be effective coming from me. Mostly I don’t understand the self-confidence of being so sure YOU are normal but everybody else isn’t. It also seems like a weird case of not realizing you are going around mocking people to their face. Or am I being “too sensitive” ??
You are not being too sensitive – it’s a dick move to mock a stranger to their face, and like a dick-squared move to mock them because of their accent or make assumptions about where they’re from.
(And: he didn’t see black people until he was 10 or 11, so he can’t empathize with them as human beings? I’ve never seen most of the people in my city, much less the country or the world, but I’m able to recognize their basic humanity.)
Okay, yes. Thanks. I spend a lot of time trying not to feel hurt when they make *me* feel unaccepted by them (they use euphemisms with me, though, like, “you are so UNIQUE”), that I second-guess myself on this stuff. But these little incidents were just so unkind, thoughtless, and gratuitous. I saw the Ethiopian woman’s face flicker in confusion after he imitated her, just before the elevator doors closed — it was awful.
Which is definitely not to say that you’re an asshole for not saying anything, because confronting people is complicated enough without isolation and holidays and everything getting mixed up in there.
“I hope she didn’t think you were mocking her accent. Especially after she was so kind to wish us a Merry Christmas.”
“I wonder how an immigrant feels when they hear comments like that.”
It’s OK to be silent in surprise. It takes practice to be able to respond in the moment. My extended family of bigots provides well for me. ::sigh::
Thank you — I will remember this script! It shocked me. I haven’t seem them behave like this before, but I’m not sure if it’s because they are 65+ and their public standards of manners/behavior are slipping, or it was just luck, or it was that when my mother was still alive she used to handle situations like this herself by being extra specially warm and fixing the situation (they are all her little brothers and she was an amazing person). But now it’s my turn to deal with it. And I’m sorry about all your own hard-earned experience — but you have certainly grown in poise and wisdom from it, and I’m grateful you share that.
I don’t think you’re being too sensitive at all, but I sometimes console myself in similar situations by assuming that the people being openly mocked are going to do the same thing with equal or greater cruelty the minute the offending party has left. When former neighbors would expect me to join in a nice racist chat, I would just try to remain calm and speak from my own experience and not the Fox News appetizer platter they were passing around, and then leave as soon as possible and breathe into a paper bag. Sorry you had such a crappy time.
YOU ARE NOT BEING TOO SENSITIVE. Those people sound like thoughtless louts, and the things that they said to you are not OK! Especially the Chinese restaurant thing, that is appalling. And I’m from the Midwest!
Thanks. And I don’t mean to paint the Midwest with a broad stroke, sorry! They come from a very very northerly pretty rural part of the Midwest where for a long time the only diversity was Native Americans on reservations — and they seem to be *really* unused to any other kind of diversity. And even that is diversity-by-separation — so maybe it is part of the problem. Which I will try to work on if I can.
No worries! It is true that outside large cities, the Midwest is not very diverse at all, which leads to this kind of cluelessness. I run into it a lot myself, even among my friends. As a person who has traveled a fair amount and lived in other countries, I try to be as kind as I can while encouraging them to think a bit more broadly–“Have you ever thought about what it’s like to live in a place where you don’t speak the language?” “Can you use different words for that idea? My friends from [country] would really be offended if they heard that.”
It can be hard to call people out without alienating them. I am trying to get better with practice.
Happy New Year, beloved Toasties!
I miss seeing all your lovely avatars and thoughtful, funny, and encouraging words. Busy Time At Work really sucks. BLAH.
I’m spending the evening with the Burgomaster and my two BFFs. We’re going to eat a big dinner, watch Only Lovers Left Alive (which they haven’t yet seen), and everyone will probably retire to their respective homes/beds before midnight. Next year, though, since I have a three-day weekend to recover, I’ll be having a giant shindig and you all are invited.
THERE.
I am excited for New Years, always. It’s the anniversary of when me and my now-husband got together – it was very ‘When Harry Met Sally’ which is ugh because I haaaaate that movie, but also YES because it is actually pretty awesome when two friends suddenly look at each other and go ‘YOU!’ (also, if you stare at ‘you’ for even a short time it stops looking like a real word – I was trying to figure out if that exclamation really worked or not lalala).
Last year we stayed in because pfffffff it’s cold in MN jeeeez, but this year, even though it is shitty outside, we’re going with friends to see a brass band with a free champagne toast at midnight and I am excited/scared because it kinda sorta seems like something one of my abusive exes would be into and I don’t everrrr want to see him again, which is hard when you live in the same city and have the same taste it parties : We’ll see! It’ll probably be fine!
Happy New Years toastiesssss <3
This is only the second year in my life that I’m not spending NYE with my family. I have plans to spend the evening with old friends. There will be a bonfire! and fireworks! and drinking! and yet I’m feeling pretty sad about the loss of our longstanding tradition.
That sounds very nice! I feel you on the family stuff though. I have very strong ties to my family’s holiday celebrations and I hate when they change. But it seems like you have a great night to change it up with!
Is eHarmony still homophobic? Straight singles used to avoid it to avoid supporting bigotry. Is that still the case?
I don’t actually know, but if so, I will definitely avoid. This is the first time I’ve ever used online dating so I’ll gladly heed advice as to what to avoid!
I think the guy who started it probably still is? I heard his whole deal was that he wanted to get more people to get married because God, and since his God is against being gay and because most gay people couldn’t/can’t get married, he made it straights-only. But then someone in the organization saw the financial benefit of having a separate site for gay people, so they started that (but I have literally only ever seen one commercial for it, as opposed to the thousands of eHarmony commercials and hundreds of OurTime [their site for older people] commercials I see).
You are valuable as-is, without achieving any resolutions. Please believe that. I gently suggest your resolutions, with the exception of #3, are not phrased in a way that shows kindness to yourself. How about adding measurability at a threshold that puts encouragement in easy reach?
1. Practice Kung Fu every Tuesday. Additional practice sessions to be followed by a celebratory text message or blog post to someone who has promised a swift congratulatory response.
2. Read from a book for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times every week, perhaps at bed time. Additional minutes/sessions to be followed by notation of same on your tally sheet tucked into the back of the book. Regular rewards (favorite pastry, concert tix?) at predetermined intervals.
3. Work on writing those books every Wednesday evening. Consider making a date with yourself at the library, for example, and go there to write every Wednesday after work. Or at a favorite coffee shop so you can reward yourself with a warm beverage.
4. Work out a mantra to repeat when you notice jealousy. Something encouraging, please. This time, do something for someone else after every jealousy event, no matter the outcome. Random act of kindness is recommended. Consider making a list of random kindnesses for future events.
I hope I have not overstepped. Please forgive me. Your list just pushed my be-kind-to-yourself buttons. You deserve the best. Happy new year.
I appreciate your comments! In fact, though, I am doing very much like what you said — for example, this past year I had fairly successfully practiced kung fu at least twice a week, barring extenuating circumstances, so this year when I resolve to practice kung fu more (since practicing less than three times a week is, for all practical purposes, not practicing at all), what I mean is that I resolved to increase that measurability threshold (i.e., from “at least twice” to “at least three times”). I skipped it before since I did not consider anyone to be that interested in my kung fu routines.
Nevertheless, I agree with you completely, and have taken steps to ensure that my resolutions are both improving and measurable. Thank you!
I’m five weeks pregnant and spotting and freaking the fuck out. I’ve never been pregnant before, and the internet is not helping– it’s all either NBD! or DEF MISCARRIAGE. I called my doctor’s office, and the nurse told me to go the ER, which sounds like an overreaction. I have an OB appointment Tuesday. I’m just sitting here waiting to see if I bleed more or cramp or what. This is hellish.
Best wishes to you <3 I hope everything is okay!
Thanks, @femaelstrom and @thestonefruit. I appreciate it.
I spoke with another nurse, and this one was so dismissive it was reassuring. Usually dismissiveness is like #4 on my top ten list of things that infuriate me, but weirdly, this made me feel better.
I think I’m going to take a nap with my dog.
Naps with dogs are very therapeutic. I hope all is well and I’m sorry for your stress.
Hi! Ob here. You need to see an obstetrician — because if your blood type is Rh negative, you need Rhogam, which is a kind of shot that makes it so you do not develop antibodies to your fetus’s blood type (which could cause severe issues in future pregnancies).
But it could be either NBD or miscarriage, and no one will be able to tell you either way for a little while. It is unsatisfying but true.
Hello, Ob! I have an appointment with an ob on Tuesday. Assuming nothing dramatic happens, do I need to see a doctor before then?
Ideal time window within which you should receive Rhogam if you’re Rh negative is 72 hours.
Take care of yourself. I know it is so hard to be in that position.
Thank you. And thanks for the medical info. Toast commenters are the best.
No problem. Be well.
No need to respond, Thecla, but just know that I am thinking about you and hope that you are okay.
I know you’re not some personal OB concierge, but I am 14 weeks and RH negative (O-neg, specifically) and my doc just said I need the shot at 28 weeks…Does she need it sooner since she’s bleeding?
Also, @TheclaAndSeals, good pregnancy vibes your way. We had a little scare with an ultrasound and whooo boy, pregnancy anxiety is a whole different beast. Hope everything is OK. The not knowing is the hardest part.
Riiiiiight?! I was so chill for the first week or so– I’m not like a regular pregnant lady, I’m a cool pregnant lady– and then I totally lost my shit Wednesday and have not gotten it back. Thankfully, like I told @CultofGozer, it looks like everything’s ok.
Thank you. Good news from my neck of the woods– the spotting stopped not longer after it started, and hasn’t come back. Everything’s been normal for two days now.
I sent my mom a photo of the spotting (there’s no such thing as TMI between us). She said it looked like what she had when she was pregnant with me, and, well, here I am. I’m still a little anxious, but functioning.
Happy to hear it.
I’m spending new year’s eve holed up in my parents’ house, which is basically in the Siberian tundra (okay it’s the Midwest but I’m no longer acclimated to the cold). I can’t go outside for a cigarette because I will die and they will only find my body when it thaws in the spring. It’s really cold inside too and my dad doesn’t want to turn up the thermostat. I can’t believe I used to live here and my new year’s resolution is to buy warmer socks.
This is unrelated to New Year’s, but I found this a few weeks ago and have been wanting to share it here:
I have never felt the temptation to “tear out little nips” from the corners of pages. Is that actually a thing?
I do this with all other paper products–napkins and wrappers and receipts and stuff. I have never ONCE considered doing it with a book. EIther I have a mental block there, or lots of other people see nothing wrong with it.
I ate a little bit off all the corners of anything I was reading until my parents taught me not to. I still remember the delicious acid taste of browning paper from WWII-era pulp books. Mmm.
Well, I do generally refrain from writing on my friends (at least, not without their permission), but their cleanliness is frankly their own lookout.
But the real question is, do you refrain from rolling your friends’ edges up and taking little nips of them?
But what if I read to avoid human beings?
I don’t know where else to put this, so I’m sharing here: I don’t have new year’s eve plans, and for some reason, that fact is making me feel terrible right now. I feel like I’m back in high school not getting invited out on a Saturday night. In the past few months my self-esteem has disappeared and I feel like I’m a bad person, I’m bad at everything I do, I’ll never amount to anything, and I’m going to be alone forever. I just don’t know what to do anymore or why I feel so hurt about not having anything to do on what’s really just a silly drinking holiday. Hmph.
LOTS of hugs for you. I’m in the same boat, both in terms of not having plans and of feeling terrible over the past few months. It sucks!
I really hope 2015 is better for you <3
Bad people do not read The Toast. You are *not* a bad person. But I know the feeling you describe. It sucks and I’m sorry you’re feeling it. And you are not alone. Everyone here cares about you, even if we’re only strangers on the internet, we’re a damn fine bunch. I will drink to you tonight and I hope to see you here in the comments again soon.
Oh, pooh, getting through NYE with YouTube or Project Gutenberg is fine — all the best people, really — but the total misery and self-loathing and lack of ?agency? ?planning? ?gumption? (I am projecting here): that’s no good.
Personally I am resorting to (1) absurdly tiny regular goals, (2) not doing anything actively stupid.
Fist-bump to you.
Also, a little practice I worked out with a friend: “I don’t know what to do” is just an unfinished sentence.”I don’t know what to do YET.”
I am a huge fan of absurdly tiny regular goals, which feel so small that it’s no big deal to just do them, but they add up fast. Go, you.
I like your unfinished sentence concept. I plan to borrow it.
High five for no NYE plans! I decided to make my own plans: make a lovely dinner from the scraps in the fridge, chill a split of cheap champagne, stay in pajamas watching Doctor Who. It was great, and much better for my temperament than being invited out for the all-drinking, all-chitchat, some-shivering-outdoors parade of NYE gatherings some of my friends attended.
Hey guys I may have just ducked out of the NYE party I am currently attending in order to Google “conversation topics”
help
my year’s worth of pleasant banter ran out four hours too soon
no no no the answer to your problem is “ask questions”! all good things will develop from there! save for the next party. hope you had a good night regardless!
I tried asking questions for a while but I was so socially exhausted that I couldn’t even process the answers I received. I’d just be like “yup” and nod stupidly. It was pathetic. After that I just hung around near the handful of people I knew.
(In 2014, I moved to another country and have since met over 500 people and have had to conduct my entire life in my second language. After a not-so-great Christmas visit that I spent with one acquaintance and 20 strangers I’ll never see again, I just couldn’t muster up the energy to make small talk with another 25 strangers I’ll never see again.)
I did end up having a good time at the party though. After a few hours, the dancing started and I love dancing! Then I solved the social problem by walking up to a handsome guy on the dance floor, all smiles and offering my hands to draw him to me…easily the most fun way I’ve ever spent the first hours of a new year. Confidence +10, faith in men +10.
Feels good to be putting 2014 into the recycling bin for responsible dismantling. I finally got an apartment manager to send out an application after talking to another who said she was sending it but never did. Her ad went up Dec. 27, I mailed the app today, and she’s already riding me about needing to pay for all of January while at the same time telling me she’s getting a lot of responses and wants to rent it immediately. SO I don’t think I’m going to get this place, and I already hate my landlord if I do! Kinda losing hope, and I don’t want to drag that mindset with me into 2015. Phbblt.
Furiously concentrating thoughts your way. I want so much for you to get what you want as well as what you need.
I also have a crafts question. I’m working on my next crochet project (something for me after all the gifts I just made) and I have some lace weight yarn that’s twisted into hanks. Everything I see on the internet tells me to either put it over the backs of some chairs and unwind it by hand– which I’ve done before, and it took me about a million years– or to buy some sort of fancy-ass contraption, which isn’t going to happen. I know a lot of you are crafty. Any clever suggestions?
Do you have a ball winder? You can use a ball winder without a swift, although it will take a little longer.
Alternatively, did you buy the yarn at an LYS that has a ball winder you can use?
I’ve wound lace weight yarn by hand, and it is the worst. I don’t think there’s a good alternative that doesn’t use a ball winder – you can get one from Amazon for about $20, so it may be worth the investment.
I do not. I’m thinking of rigging up something DIY since I’m at my parents’ house and they have a basement full of junk and power tools that could be MacGyvered into some sort of yarn system.
I’ve been allowed to use the swift and the ball-winder at the yarn store when the store is not busy, even if I didn’t buy the yarn there.
I just realized that my #1 resolution in 2015 is to become even more of a misandrist.
I talk a big game but I want to attain the level of contempt for men that all those women in Mallory’s Western art history posts have. At this point in my life, I still listen to men far too often and have far too much respect for their opinions.
I do think I’m on my way – a few months ago I saw a man and thought “He’s pretty cute. He doesn’t go with my outfit though.” I had to speak to a man in a fedora at a party and I kept a contemptuous smirk on my face the whole time. But I need to keep up that level of contempt with all the new men I meet. I need to out-condescend old white men. With the help of the Toast, I truly believe I can accomplish this goal.
Yes, yes you can. Have you chosen which of Mallory’s women in western art will be your desktop background for 2015?
Really, any of the ones with implied lesbianism will do it for me. In addition to being more of a misandrist, I want to be a lot gayer. So the pictures where two women are deep in conversation and aggressively trying to ignore a man really speak to my soul.
Together, we’re better. Together, we can.
Just recently I had a near-(walking)-collision with a dude in a hallway, and I said “oops sorry” and he just strode past me like I wasn’t there.
At that moment I resolved to never excuse myself to a dude AGAIN.
A poem I wrote a few months ago, when I refused to move out of the path of two douchebros on the street:
Because I could not move for Bros taking up the whole fucking sidewalk-
They reluctantly moved for me-
It needs work, but I think about it a lot.
I think it is perfect!!
Hello, Toasticles! This time, in the ongoing saga of EJ13 Schtupps Quirky but Arguably Ill Advised Menfolk – last night I hooked up with a dude with the word “grammar!” tattooed on his forearm. Exclamation point included. Where would we be without Tinder? Better rested, to be sure, and absent a sense of vague regret.
My NYE plans involve isolated witchery and self care, which I hope sets the tone for 2015.
Witchery! I was planning to cast a spell when I get back to my office next week. A spell which I have yet to invent, for productivity and professionalism and awesome hair.
See if Mallory will share her spellcraft with you.
Ughhhhh you guys my stupid RV house-machine that I live in has a clogged toilet and it is super gross because it’s a tank toilet and everything’s just … sitting there. And it’s unusable so I have to drive to town to go to the bathroom at Safeway. 😛
I am waiting for the emergency plumber guy and wondering if I’m worried about being alone with the plumber guy.
You have dog(s), right? Keep one with you while with the plumber guy. Even fools know the smallest, friendliest dog will bite if their human is attacked.
Sorry for your clogged toilet. Driving to town for a toilet sounds miserable. How close are your neighbors? I would go out behind the barn some of the time, if I were you. Actually, I have gone out behind the barn when I was in upstate New York. It’s a vivid memory, as it was January and below 0.
Sending good thoughts your way. 2015 has to be better.
Yeah, one dog is off with husband-person delivering hay, but the little pibble mutt is here with me. The neighbors are closer than town but they are all either out of town or have a newborn. I have def. been behind the barn but sometimes one wants a proper toilet.
At least the greywater tank for sinks and shower is different and it still drains fine. If I also couldn’t shower I would be … in a motel room, probably.
Ha!! The truck has arrived and it is staffed by two women. All worries unnecessary.
🙂
EXCELLENT
My dears, I just went to the MFA Goya exhibit with my family, and I thought of you so many times. I would totally pony up for a coffee table book called: Goya: the Misandrist Masterworks.
The Duchess of Alba and her proud stance! those women tossing a male puppet into the air with a piece of cloth! huzzah!
(Though to be fair, I think Goya is probably equally misandrist and misogynist once he got into his Black Period).
Yes! And that badass older peasant woman getting ready to stab the soldier overpowering the young woman. And that sweet butch/femme couple embracing and not being caricatured or made grotesque in any way.
If he decided he hated everybody equally after all the evil he’d seen I can’t really blame him. 🙁
Guys, Edward Hermann passed away and he’s literally on my television right now and GODDAMMIT 2014, YOU JUST HAD TO SUCK THAT LITTLE BIT MORE BEFORE YOU LEFT US.
I will have two glasses of wine at lunch tomorrow in his memory.
Oh nooooo 🙁
“The greatest joy for me, however, is the impact the show has had on a whole generation of young people who learned that, though growing up is tough at the best of times, it can be done with humor, honesty, and love. The gulf between generations is far less important than is commonly supposed when people can drop the pose and talk honestly with each other.”
— Edward Herrmann (on Gilmore Girls)
<3
Oh, that is such sad news. I will toast to his memory tonight, while out with friends.
What?! Nooooo :c
I just heard, I’m so sad, he’s literally on my TV now too. As you say, 2014 just had to have the last cruel joke on us 🙁
Guys, I just saw on imdb that his middle name was Kirk. That’s fabulous.
Everyone’s remembering him for playing Richard Gilmore and FDR and Max on Lost Boys, but he also did a great guest turn on MASH.
Read this a few hours ago.
http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/my-new-j…
Some Internet jackass posted this and I got all seriously verklempt and now I’m being that Internet jackass and sharing it. Goddamn it, will I miss him & Ebert. Must get this audiobook ASAP.
This year I decided to opt out of big NYE celebrations, Liz Lemon on Valentine’s Day style (well, minus the root canal). Home, boyfriend, a few friends maybe, snacks, mini bottles of champagne, and Settlers of Catan. I am hoping and willing a better 2015 than 2014 has been.
(And on that note — toasties, help a depressed girl out? I have been feeling very down the past few weeks, doubting friendships and my relationship, not liking myself, being frustrated that therapy isn’t “working” fast enough, and in general just BLAHHH. Any friendly words would mean a lot to me.)
You are awesome and I enjoy reading your comments.
This made me smile – thank you
I hear you. Those feelings are real and they SUCK. They are probably also related to shorter days, and holiday stress, and disrupted routine (at least they are for me) — which doesn’t make them less real or make me not have to deal with them. Hmph.
I am planning to address this by going to the Korean spa on Friday for the first time. I’m super looking forward to it. Maybe you can have a treat yo’ self kind of day, too?
I hope your evening is as relaxing as it sounds, because it sounds delightful.
Thank you a bunch. A Korean spa day sounds exciting! I hope you have a great day there.
I’m sorry you’re not liking yourself. I like you. I am certain I would like you even more if I know you IRL. And therapy is hard. You are doing hard work just keeping your appointments. Please will you give us an update in a few days? No matter how you’re feeling then. Please?
Thank you so much. I will.
Take good care of yourself. The days are already getting longer (if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere). I wish therapy worked faster! And a nice quiet New Year’s Eve sounds great (we are doing something similar but with peanut butter cookies and “Bomb Girls”.)
Yes, I was so happy about the solstice for that reason! 🙂 Thanks for the nice words. Cookies and Bomb Girls sounds like a great combination.
This is, in my experience, a rough time of year for the depression. No matter how low-key you try to keep your holiday celebrations, everything gets crazy and out of hand, there’s less sunlight, and everything is covered in glitter and canned carols. During this time of year, I try to remember that my feelings about myself aren’t necessarily reflective of the reality. Which, unhelpfully, means that my approach is “accept that sadness is a thing that’s going to happen for awhile, and just power through it,” but which has the advantage of knowing that the sadness will probably naturally come to an end at some point, and that I’m not sad because I’m a bad person.
Therapy is huge! Every time you keep an appointment, you’re actively doing something to get yourself into a better place, and that’s a big deal. It’s a lot of work, and the progress can seem slow, but just the fact that you’re taking active steps to fight your depression is a big step. So give yourself permission to feel your feelings, keep doing therapy one appointment at a time, and sometimes remember to stop what you’re doing, check in with yourself, and remind yourself that you matter. Because you matter a whole bunch.
Thank you so so much. This made me feel a lot (not necessarily better/worse, just a lot – not in a bad way) and I appreciate it.
I needed to hear that so much right now. Thank you.
Your NYE celebration sounds luxurious and full of self-love, and you deserve it.
When you’re down, it’s common to doubt all your relationships, but that doubt is a feeling, not likely a reflection of fact. Cut yourself some slack and let the therapy take some time to work. You’re making changes, and they’re gradual. Your heart and mind need time to find their way where you’re going, and you’re impressive for doing that work to clear the path.
Happy new year.
Thank you. I needed to see/hear this.
Happy New Year! With that out of the way, New Year’s Eve is the worst and most over-rated holiday. I have never had a New Year’s Eve that was better than “eh, that wasn’t the worst night of my life” and this year was no different. I’m very glad to get on with January 1 now.
2014 was the best year I’ve had socially and romantically in ages. My social situation (and country) has completely changed, but here’s hoping my love life stays at least at the level it’s at now for just a bit longer.
My exciting NYE plans: walk the boss’ dogs (he pays me, it’s cool), see if the neighbors have a party I can crash, maybe go to bed early so I can get up and go feed the dogs. Since I have tomorrow off, as well as the work van, I’m going to go to Kmart and buy a new microwave, then do my grocery shopping.
wooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Dogs! A great way to celebrate: rub their tummies.
I’m going to rub their tummies, under their collars, and that spot behind their ears they love. And since there won’t really be anybody else around, they’re going to get to gambol about unleashed, which will be an extra-special treat.
I’m bad with parties, but fantastic with dogs, is what I’m saying.
Ahhh Toast frans! Happy end of 2014! I’ve been back home in LA for Christmas and New Year’s for the first time in three years and it’s been awesome! The husband is a big plane geek, and since we are in Pasadena, he’s frothing at the mouth to see the jet and bomber flyovers for the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl game. Personally, all I really care about is eating a grip of donuts and bean dip while watching the parade and being a lazy bum.
Anyone have any New Year’s Day traditions that they can’t live without? (As above, mine’s bean dip)
It is already 11am on Jan 1st in eastern Australia and I would like to report that so far 2015 will involve massive thunderstorms right on the stroke of midnight and then the guttering of your house falling off! YAY! We were watching the Sydney fireworks on TV and then the fireworks got a lot more localised and personal. I checked the weather bureau website today and we got somewhere between 120mm and 290mm (!!) or 4.7 to 11.4 inches of rain, holy friggin’ shit.
This year I’m about to help organise a massive choir festival and level up like a lot in Fallen London! I totally seduced the Melancholy Curate and his Sister a couple of days ago so I’m feeling pretty smug.
That is an insane amount of rain! Hope everything’s OK.
Dad went down the road to check the causeway over the creek and he said he could tell from the amount of debris and pushed-down grass and stuff that the water had been up to 1.7 metres above normal level, which is just ridiculous. It must have come through really fast for there to be that much water moving through, because it’s a pretty small creek normally. And yet we’re not flooded in, which is some kind of miracle, although if we get a repeat performance in the next couple of days we might have a problem.
I’m visiting my parents so I will be in bed by 9. But my mister is going out out tonight with friends. I jokingly asked who he was going to kiss at midnight and he didn’t even miss a beat “some drunk girl at the bar, probably.” Which isn’t true and totally a joke but now I’m all bent about it. Ugh, feelings.
Whoa, not cool of him. You have the right to be bent about that! I would be!
Ugh… men.
I went to a NYE concert with my bf and when they did the countdown, he was so focused on taking a video of it on his phone and playing with the balloons that came down that he forgot to kiss me. Those were his words “I forgot.” I’m far angrier about it than I should be I guess. He keeps reminding me that I could have kissed him (true) but it’s hard to realize that when someone is focused so completely on something else.
I was considering going out tonight but am still dealing with the cold that WILL NOT DIE so I’m going to stay in and watch Netflix and squirt saline solution up my nose.
Is anybody else planning on doing drynuary? I am plannng on giving up booze and carbs for a month in the hopes that a fairly restrictive diet will help reset my palate and re-orient me towards a healthier diet. (NB: I’m going lo-carb because I have PCOS and a sweet tooth, and one of the therapies for PCOS is a low-GI diet.)
Your links just link back to this page? But there is some discussion of Drynuary in the resolutions thread here. I should probably join in, myself.
uugh intense debate is not playing well with HTML again.
Here’s the article I posted for PCOS: http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pco…
Here’s Jolie’s article from last year about drynuary: http://foodspin.deadspin.com/im-going-a-month-wit…
And I will join in the resolutions thread, which I somehow missed. Whoopsies.
FYI, impromptu dance parties with the next door neighbors are the best dance parties.
Happy east-coast New Year! My plans for the night fell through, so I ordered really fancy pizza with my parents and played Cards Against Humanity online with my long-distance friends. I’m peeved that I didn’t get to Go Out; I’m super introverted and it’s rare that I want to Go Out and Party and I figure it will become even rarer as I get older so I should take advantage while I’m young. But there’s always next year, and other nights, and all in all it wasn’t a bad way to ring in the new year.
Your Dad was obviously a goddam prophet!
Happy New Year, Toasties!
I am working today (get your sprots #content) so if anyone would like to entertain me with stories of your NYE debauchery/misfortune/the debauched NYE misfortune of your enemies, go for it. I hung out with my friends and their baby, then went to a house party I had to leave before 1 a.m.
Saw Yo La Tengo, who were great, for ten bucks, so I really can’t complain. Except over a decade ago, a bunch of us who produced local queer arts events had a special meeting with the folks who put on First Night (which the Yo La Tengo appearance was part of) and lobbied them to include more queer stuff. Sometime during this very long meeting, I also mentioned that they should program hipper music and other stuff for teens and undergrads since we live in a college town. They took that throwaway suggestion and ran with it, but forgot all about queer programming, particularly ridiculous in a year when a big commercial film like “The Boxtrolls” (also meant “for families”) had an explicitly pro-queer-family song on its soundtrack.
Happy belated New Year! I was at work but delivered the first New Year baby in my state, so all is not so bad! *high fiving a million angels*
Hooray!
Congratulations!!
Belated best wishes on the year!
I loved this movie.
Oh no I forgot to remind/notify about the Seattle Toast Facebook group I made! (Sorry, I don’t really get twitter, if you are not on fb but want to be involved, shoot me an email at lauren at my username dot com, I think — if that doesn’t work, bug me here!)
Anyway Seattle Toast fb: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1389843721308618/
Join us! We will have meetups and mischief! There is discussion of a meetup on Tuesday January 6th so get on it!
So I had this pretty sweet plan to go up to the mountains for NYE with boyfriend with friend couple for snacks and drinking and boardgames. Only, friend couple broke up on the 31st…and it was too late to cancel the reservation. Apparently they’d been on a ‘break’ for the last three weeks and had been planning on doing holiday events together still and then assessing, but last minute decided they couldn’t do it. Which I do completely get, I just wish they’d been open about it even a couple days in advance of this kind of expensive but not that crazy when split four-ways minivacation. Because now it’s split two ways and we were committed to this big drive etc when we didn’t have to be.
So, boy and I headed into the mountains alone. It was a lot of fun still, and ended up on the romantic getaway side of things, but am still not feeling like an actual NYE ever happened. Plus the whole doubled price thing.
Happy New Year! I am glad you had a romantic (relaxing?) time in the mountains! But I feel like they should have paid for the thing they backed out of *day of.* Would it be too weird to ask them to cough it up? I feel like standard behavior for last minute cancellation is to pay up. I’m sure they’ve got a lot to think about with breaking up and all, but …
Thank you, and a Happy New Year to you!
In fact, last night one of the two came over to hang/spend the night/talk, and among other things he mentioned that they do want to pay for their half, which I was very happy to hear. Big emotional moments are written in bold letters and finer detail stuff like that can get left to the side for a little bit, I’ve definitely been there myself, so I’m glad that the two of them thought about and went forward to make things right without any prompting from me.
My fiancee and I stayed in for New Year’s Eve. I tend to find that going out for the night rarely lives up to the hype, so we just hung out, watched TV and movies/played video games, got drunk on whiskey and wine, and alternated between enjoying/mocking parts of the various NYE shows. I’m pretty damn pleased with how it all turned out.
Also, I ran 9 miles this weekend as part of my training, and I feel incredible. I still can’t believe I can run that far. Also, tried the salted caramel Gu that was suggested to me, and found it to be not so bad. Also, bought new shoes!
Also also, I get married this year! Less than 5 months now. All the major details are locked down. Can’t wait!
My fiancee and I stayed in for New Year's Eve. I tend to find that going out for the night rarely lives up to the hype, so we just hung out, watched TV and movies/played video games, got drunk on whiskey and wine, and alternated between enjoying/mocking parts of the various NYE shows. I'm pretty damn pleased with how it all turned out.
Also, I ran 9 miles this weekend as part of my training, and I feel incredible. I still can't believe I can run that far. Also, tried the salted caramel Gu that was suggested to me, and found it to be not so bad. Also, bought new shoes!
Also also, I get married this year! Less than 5 months now. All the major details are locked down. Can't wait!